New civil money penalty (CMP) amounts, adjusted for inflation, were announced Monday under a final rule issued by the federal consumer financial protection agency; the increased penalty amounts take effect Jan. 15.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said it calculated the new amounts, as required by law, by multiplying the former amounts CMPs by the “cost-of-living adjustment” multiplier of 1.03241 (and rounded to the nearest dollar).
There are at least 11 levels of penalties allowed under the law that CFPB can assess. They range from violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), at $115 per violation (up from $111), to the annual cap on penalties assessed for violations of the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act of $2.449 million (up from $2.372 million).
According to CFPB, the inflation adjustments mandated by the law (the Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, amended by the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 and further amended by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015) “serve to maintain the deterrent effect of civil penalties and to promote compliance with the law.”